by Anne Marsh
Our kiss starts out polite, a hi-how-are-you kiss, a welcome-home kiss. His tongue traces the line of my closed lips, as if he’s asking for permission. When I open my mouth, he strokes inside. I know you. The kiss gets hungrier, more demanding. The sounds that we make are greedy. I want you. All of you. Can I? We kiss wilder and rougher, staking our claim on each other. All mine, all yours. All ours.
Liam pulls me closer as if maybe he’d like to crawl inside me, too. With a laugh, he dances me around in a circle. This is both dirty and welcome. My shorts are old and his fingers aren’t exactly staying in PG territory.
I pull my mouth away from his. “Are you humming?”
He grins at me. “Yes?”
“I have so many questions.” Truly. “The W kind of questions—the who, what, when, why sort of thing.”
“I’m taking you dancing.” He says this as if it makes perfect sense.
“We’re in my yard.”
“Yeah.” He makes another sweeping twirl. “I missed you.”
He sits us down on the porch and settles me on his lap. “I need to tell you some things.”
“Okay.” This comes out less badass than I would like because I’m already breathless. Plus, I may not let go of his mouth entirely. I suck on his bottom lip.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. I guess he’s either practicing or getting it all out of his system at once. “For using our marriage to spackle over my poor personal decisions. For thinking you were just someone convenient. For not making you feel special or like you counted when you’re the most important person in my life.”
Liam’s thorough. I want to go back to the kissing, but he did make me feel like I didn’t matter, that he could have been married to any other woman and that I was interchangeable. “I hate that you don’t remember most of our wedding night. That you just woke up next to me and felt stuck with me. That you made decisions for us without asking me what I thought, even if they weren’t bad decisions.”
His hands tighten on my hips. “I hate that, too. I hate even more that I didn’t realize what a lucky bastard I was that I got to start straight at ‘and they lived happily ever after.’ I’d like to start over, if that’s what you want. I don’t want to not remember the night you promised to love me forever. And I definitely want to be partners. Full partners.”
I’m not sure what he’s getting at. “You want to date?”
“No. I mean, I can if that’s what you want. I thought we could redo the memory kinds of moments.”
“I have no idea what that means.” It takes me longer than it should to make this perfectly valid point because Liam’s kissing me again.
“I’d be happy to demonstrate.” His voice is rough but happy.
“Is that a euphemism?”
“Not yet. Hold that thought.” I’m not certain how I feel about his master plan to restart our relationship, but I definitely know what I’m feeling underneath me and I was sort of expecting we’d have the rest of our conversation naked and in bed. He slides me off his lap, which is unexpected.
He strides over to his ridiculous bus and disappears inside. It would be so much easier to just focus on how cute Liam is with his science program and how his hotness makes me want to jump him right here on my porch. It’s just that’s not all of Liam. He’s smart and sometimes—okay, often—ruthless and once he’s got a goal, he’s pretty much all-out until he’s reached it. He’s used to people falling all over him because he has a ton of money and they want a piece of it, so they pretty much roll over and do whatever he suggests because he radiates authority and power.
It’s at odds with the guy holding a plastic cake carrier. I attempt to reconcile my bad-boy billionaire with a stress baker or whatever’s sent him in the direction of cake.
“Here,” he says when he gets close. Automatically, I take the cake carrier he’s holding out. He’s giving me...cupcakes?
“Thank you?”
The frosting is lavishly uneven, bright green blobs with dabs of pink and blue. There may not be any food coloring left in the entire state of California. It’s almost blinding. He’s spelled out I love you with what looks like marigold petals.
“It’s our wedding cake,” he tells me. “We didn’t get to have one, so I made you one, although I’m definitely not vouching for the quality. You’ll have to grade me on effort. Also, I borrowed the flowers from your garden, in the spirit of full disclosure.”
“It’s perfect.”
He holds out his other hand, the one that isn’t holding the cupcake carrier. “Will you marry me?”
He’s offering me two gold wedding bands, a his and a hers.
A second chance at us.
A chance at having all of him and giving him all of me.
“Yes.” I take his hand.
* * *
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CHAPTER ONE
Peyton
“WHERE THE HECK is he?”
I mumble curses under my breath as I pace around my condo, weaving around packed boxes that are ready to be shipped to Malta first thing tomorrow morning, right before I jump on board my brother’s Learjet and get flown to the island myself.
“You talking to me?” my best friend Carly asks.
I spin as she comes into the room with a glass of white wine and unceremoniously flops onto the buttery-yellow sofa. I’m going to miss Carly. I’m going to miss that sofa. Heck, I’m going to miss New York, too, but my dream job of teaching English to young students in Europe calls—and I’m eager to answer.
A bubble of excitement wells up inside me as I envision myself in the modern school located in the quiet community of St. Julian’s, standing before a bevy of eager minds ready
to learn a new language. Thank God, I studied Italian in college, as well as Spanish, otherwise this opportunity never would have presented itself.
While I’m thrilled that I’m one of two candidates being considered for the full-time position, leaving my friends, my brother Cason and Londyn, his new wife, and everything else I love won’t be easy. Leaving is never easy—that’s something I know firsthand. But I’m only a flight away, and I’ll have a place to come back to since Carly will be taking over the lease on my downtown condo while I’m in the Mediterranean for the next month, and hopefully longer. But that’s going to depend on numerous things...
“No. I’m talking to myself. My ‘husband’—” I pause to do air quotes around the word “—is not here yet. He’s close to an hour late for our introductory date.”
She crinkles her nose. “That’s not a great way to start a marriage.”
I snort at that. “You’re right, it’s not.” Then again, having my brother choose a pretend husband for me, using the Penn Pals dating app he created when he was an undergraduate at Penn State, is no way to start a marriage, either. Not that we’ll end up together in matrimonial bliss. Nope. Not happening. This girl is not setting herself up for that kind of disaster. If there’s one thing I learned while being tossed around in the system, it’s that I’m not a keeper. If I were, I probably wouldn’t have lived in ten different foster homes in the span of five years. I just hope I’m compatible with whoever Cason chooses. We’ll be living together in close quarters, and it’d be horrible if we didn’t at least like each other.
“Is that what you’re wearing to dinner?” Carly asks, her blue eyes tracking down my body as she cradles her wineglass like it’s a treasured heirloom.
My pulse jumps as I glance at the snug black cocktail dress that’s been sitting in the back of my closet for a year. I don’t even remember the last time I had a need to wear it, but thought it would be perfect for tonight. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”
She grins and twirls a strand of her hair around her finger. “Just that you look hot in that little number, and you don’t want this guy to fall in love with you, do you?”
“Please,” I say. “Tonight’s dinner is so we can get to know each other and talk logistics. This arrangement isn’t about love. It’s about securing a full-time teaching job for me, and for him, it’s about getting a big chunk of money for helping me get it.”
I pull the tube of bright red lipstick that Londyn gave me from my purse and swipe the creamy, hydrating wax over my lips.
I turn to face Carly, anxiety welling up inside me when I check the clock for the millionth time. “What if he doesn’t show? What if he changed his mind?”
“With the amount of money you’re paying him, he’d be crazy not to show, and spending time with you...” She pauses to look me over again. “That’s no hardship for any man, my friend.” She snaps her fingers. “I also think you should exercise your matrimonial rights and get it, gurl.”
I chuckle. “It won’t be like that, Carly. We won’t be having sex.” Like I even know what sex is anymore...or ever. My days have been busy teaching at the local elementary school and I’ve been falling asleep at night while filling out forms for this new job. Truthfully, the last time I had sex was in college, and that fumbling experience left me cold and underwhelmed. I’ve pretty much blocked it from my mind and have been flying solo since.
There is, however, one thing—one man—I wish I could exorcise from my brain. But no, the kiss I shared with Roman Bianchi, my brother’s best friend, still pings around inside my head like a runaway pinball, and that, my friends, is something I wish I could change. I try. Believe me, I try. But when I’m alone in my bed, my body stubbornly aware of how excruciatingly delicious it was to have his lips pressed against mine, a possessive claiming of my mouth that left me shaken and overly stimulated, I can’t help but think back... Then he broke it off abruptly and laughed as he walked away. If his goal was to get me to hate him, he succeeded. He also succeeded in ripping my pride to shreds and reminding me I’m not lovable.
Stupid jerk.
“I need to call Cason,” I say. “I pray my brother has a backup plan just in case the guy gets cold feet.”
“I love that color lipstick on you, by the way,” Carly says. “It goes nice with your auburn hair.”
I grin. “Londyn gave it to me the night Cason proposed to her. She said it has aphrodisiac powers.” A snicker full of disbelief rises up in my throat. “I seriously doubt that.”
She glances at me over the top of her wineglass. “Hmm...”
“What?”
“You say you don’t believe it, yet here you are applying a generous amount to your lips, anyway.” Her grin is slow. “I wonder what Freud would say.”
Seriously?
Could I subconsciously be hoping it works? Subconsciously hoping to entice my pretend husband, because I’d like to have one good sexual experience in my life?
Nah.
“You’re a psychologist.” I recap the lipstick, toss it into my purse and fish out my phone. “You think everything is a Freudian slip.”
She reaches for the remote. “Probably because it is.”
I laugh at that, and just as I’m about to call my brother, someone raps on the door. My heart jumps into my throat and I spin.
“He’s here.”
Why the heck am I suddenly so nervous? I give myself a once-over in the mirror and smooth my hand over my long auburn curls. Should I have put my hair up? Maybe spent a little more time styling it? God, what am I doing? This isn’t a real date. This is just two people who are going to be spending time together, pretending to be married, getting the first meeting out of the way. During our flight tomorrow, we’ll have lots of time to work out the kinks... I mean details. Yeah, details. That’s what I mean, and kink was not a ridiculous Freudian slip. Not at all.
I don’t think.
“Are you going to answer the door?” Carly asks, and I take in her grin. I have no idea why she thinks this is anything more than an arrangement. It’s not.
I drop my phone back into my purse, and with a big smile on my face, I swing the door open. But as soon as I see the tall figure invading my front stoop, my jaw falls open, all pretense of happiness dissolving as I set eyes on none other than the big stupid jerk himself.
“What...what are you doing here, Roman?” I ask and try to glance around him, to see if my pretend husband is on his way, but his big, dumb body and impressive height fill my doorway and block everything else out—even the gigantic full moon.
“Well, hello to you, too, Peyton.”
I take a fast breath, but my lungs are tight, constricted. “Why are you here?” I ask, and hate that I sound like a damn chipmunk jacked up on Red Bull.
His dark gaze moves over my face and slips lower to take in my dress, and goddammit, my traitorous body warms in all the wrong places. This is the man who kissed me and then laughed in my face. Sure, we were at Sebastian and Rylee’s wedding, and the champagne had been flowing, but who does something like that? Who stares at me all night, turning my blood to molten lava, then plants the hottest, sexiest kiss on my lips, and walks away laughing?
A stupid jerk, that’s who.
I give him a once-over. It’s been a year since I set eyes on him, and I’m not sure how it’s possible but this updated version of the man I hate is filling me with unwanted images—of him slipping between my thighs and bringing me to orgasm. My sex clenches, an impatient reminder that I crave being touched—properly, just once—and standing before me is a delicious specimen who undoubtedly knows his way around a woman’s body.
You hate him, remember?
I shut down my overstimulated imagination and take in the tightness of his jaw, the rigid set of his muscles when he says, “I’m here to take you on a date and get to know you.”
I stand there immobilized
, my lungs void of air as his words sink into my rattled brain. “Surely to God you’re not—”
“Your pretend husband?” He arches a brow. “Yeah, that’s me, and I apologize for being late,” he says, not looking one bit sorry at all. In fact, he looks completely pissed off, like he doesn’t like this situation any more than I do. “There was an issue.”
“An issue!” I say, my voice bordering on hysteria. “I’ll say there’s an issue.”
“Well, this just became interesting,” Carly mumbles under her breath as she turns the TV off and slips into the other room.
Interesting?
It’s anything but interesting. It’s a damn disaster. No way am I flying to Malta with Roman Bianchi and pretending to be married to him. I can’t stand the man. In fact, I hate everything about him. Except his face. Yeah, I don’t really hate that. And his body. That’s pretty banging, too. But his tailor-made suit, yeah, I hate that. I just don’t hate the way it highlights his broad shoulders and tight muscles, and reminds me my battery-operated boyfriend hasn’t been cutting it for some time now.
Good lord, Peyton. Get it together.
I close my eyes tight, hoping when I open them again he’ll be gone, his presence nothing but a figment of my imagination, but nooooo, when my lids snap open he’s still standing there, his gaze latched on mine. I swear to God, in the nanosecond I had my eyes closed, the man grew taller, broader...hotter.
“I take it your brother never told you he asked me.”
My gaze narrows on him. “This can’t be happening.”
I go for my phone again. “I need to call Cason. There must be a mix-up.” I shake my head. “Why would he ask you?”
“Because I’m one of his best friends and he’s completely overprotective of you,” he says, something warm and personal in his voice as he speaks about my brother. “Trust doesn’t come easily to Cason and he knows I’d never mess with his kid sister.”